Head of HR - Thailand

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

Unilever Thailand is a key market for Unilever with ~1B Euro Turnover and ~2.8k People based in the country.  It is home to outstanding brands with key leadership positions in the market despite the intense competitive landscape. Unilever Thailand also hosts strategic manufacturing facilities and R&D site which play a key role towards growth of not just Unilever Thailand but support other markets in Asia as well.

Role Purpose

The Head of HR Country is the enterprise people leader for Thailand, accountable for the full National HR, talent, engagement, and culture agenda, including oversight of the Minburi and Gateway manufacturing sites.

Partnering closely with the Head of Country (HoC) and the Country Leadership Team, the role enables business performance, safeguards organisational reputation and governance, and builds a future-ready workforce. The role offers direct leadership to National HR roles like Customer Development (CD) HR, National IR/ER and national key agenda including Employer Brand, Talent and ED&I and engagement.

The role acts as the single, integrated face of HR internally and externally, leading the National HR team and embedding a One HR operating model across the country.

Accountabilities

Enterprise HR & Country Leadership

• Serve as the one HR voice in-country, delivering a unified HR Business Partnering, People Experience, and HR Expertise agenda.

• Act as the primary HR partner to the Head of Country and a core member of the Country Leadership Team / IMT.

• Provide enterprise-level people insights, employment expertise, and governance oversight across all BUs and functions.

• Play a critical role in partnering CD transformation (Distributive Trade and Modern Trade) and governance/controls and ways of working between CD cross-functional and BU teams.

Country Talent, Engagement & Culture

• Lead the country talent agenda, including leadership capability, succession, critical roles, workforce planning, and early careers.

• Drive employee engagement, translating listening insights into clear priorities and disciplined enterprise follow-through. Playing a critical role along with country LT team to drive radical simplification in decision making, processes and meeting effectiveness reflected in improvement in Thailand Univoice scores.

• Champion Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, embedding inclusive leadership and equitable people practices.

• Partner with Communications to shape and lead enterprise townhalls and people narratives, particularly during change and transformation.

Employer Brand & HR Community Leadership

• Strengthen the organisation’s employer brand and external reputation in Thailand. Take strategic long term interventions and clear short term steps to improve the quality of UFLP profiles and early career profiles.

• Build and lead a high-performing country HR team, developing strong capability and succession.

• Lead the country HR community, ensuring alignment, consistency, and collective ownership across HR leaders.

Governance, ER/IR & Risk Stewardship

• Ensure compliance with Thai labour laws, regulations, and the Business Integrity.

• Own the ER/IR agenda, including union partnerships, collective bargaining, and national consultation.

• Govern country employment policies and frameworks (reward, benefits, pensions, ED&I, Future of Work).

• Serve on boards of employing legal entities as required, with fiduciary accountability across Business Integrity (in partnership with Geo/BU BI where relevant), Workplace, Safety, Health & Wellbeing.

Workplace, Change & Crisis Leadership

• Provide enterprise oversight of workplace strategy, physical and psychological safety, and wellbeing.

• Along with workplace services team (WPS), lead the transition of hybrid working and ensure any local issues are addressed to operationalize the same (e.g. floor planning, solving parking issues etc).

• Lead and land enterprise change and transformation initiatives with pace and minimal business disruption.

• Act as the HR crisis lead in-country (IMT), partnering closely with the Head of Country and Country Leadership Team.

Experience & Leadership Profile

• Senior HR leader with ~15 years minimum HR experience in country, Asia and  enterprise-level partnering with senior leadership teams.

• Enterprise and systems thinker with strong commercial and financial acumen.

• High data and financial literacy, translating insight into business-relevant outcomes.

• Proven leader of transformation and change in complex, matrixed environments.

• Strong talent, culture, and engagement leader with deep ER/IR and labour law expertise.

• Strong stakeholder management skills ideally partnering sales teams

• Executive presence with the credibility to influence boards, unions, regulators, and senior stakeholders.

• Demonstrates high judgement, resilience, and courage; able to operate with pace, ambiguity, and authority

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.